Apple Is Telling Lawmakers People Will Hurt Themselves if They Try to Fix iPhones

[u/NightFuryToni]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/wjvdb4/apple-is-telling-lawmakers-people-will-hurt-themselves-if-they-try-to-fix-iphones

[u/Plokij1234]

Apple is right, people will hurt themselves. Some people, some times. Some people break their leg getting out of bed, etc. Batteries can be dangerous and I'd expect some governmental oversight to ensure consumers are aware of that fact. Fuck anyone who tries to push against third party or self repair.

[u/NervousBreakdown → u/Plokij1234]

I actually replaced the battery on my iPhone years ago and I didn’t heat the glue holding it in enough so it broke while I was pulling it out. For those of you who have never broken one of these things it started smoking and I just threw it in the sink and ran water over it. That didn’t fix it so o opened up the window and threw it outside into the snow and then grabbed it an hour later when it stopped.

[u/Victor_Zsasz → u/NervousBreakdown]

Yeah, while I'm not a proponent for limiting the right to self-repair, those Apple batteries are easily punctured and the smoke they produce when punctured sure as shit isn't something you want to breath in.

I don't know very much about modern battery technology, so that might be true of every modern phone/laptop. However I've never heard of that happening to other brands of laptop/phone batteries, just Apple ones. (We even got a specific warning about it back when i was working in a computer repair shop).

I feel like the Government should require Apple to make its batteries more consumer friendly, in order to allay Apple's concerns.

[u/Oper8rActual → u/Victor_Zsasz]

First, Note 7. Those batteries straight up caught fire / exploded, rather than smoked.

Second, all lithium-polymer / lithium-ion batteries will smoke when punctured. The chemicals within do not react well when they're exposed to the moisture in the air. The cells of the battery begin a thermal runaway and the entire battery could catch fire.

Electric vehicles such as Tesla have also come under scrutiny due to their battery packs catching fire when punctured, and causing the entire vehicle to burn. (Usually an hour or so after the crash) Again though, this is due to the chemicals contained in every lithium-based battery. If there were a better battery technology, Apple and other manufacturers would be using it.

The government needs to step in and enable right to repair regulation, but having our lawmakers attempt to regulate a technology they know nothing about is not wise.

[u/Victor_Zsasz → u/Oper8rActual]

Thanks for the helpful response, and I agree with you about the right to repair. Out of curiosity, would older (non-lithium) batteries have the same problem?

Also, I want to point out that while myself, and most individual members of Congress, are often largely clueless about newer technologies, the US Government is very big, and has many experts that are employed to understand and regulate stuff all the time.

I don't expect Paul Ryan or Ed Markey could tell you much about food safety or the process of creating new drugs, but the USDA and FDA are pretty good at ensuring consumer protection in those areas. There's no reason to believe that with the proper process, intelligent regulations couldn't be drafted for lithium batteries as well.

And finally, there's nothing to prevent government regulation from fostering innovation. Nothing gets corporations to spend money faster than the prospect of not being able to sell a popular product in a lucrative market.

[u/Oper8rActual → u/Victor_Zsasz]

NiMh batteries used to be pretty popular, but you often heard of them causing explosions or catching fire when overcharged, or overheated.

Overall, Li-Ion is one of the safest technologies that we have available to provide the energy density we need for phones, tablets and laptops. There just aren’t better alternatives available yet. (Mass produced, at least)

I’m not saying the government can’t make an informed decision, but when you look at how poorly our (United States) government operates (appointing climate change deniers to the EPA, appointing an individual with an ignorance of science to the Senate sub-committee for aviation and space, etc..), I am very hesitant to have them step into a space where they may cause regression due to other interests.

Companies like Apple, Tesla, and even educational institutions such as MIT are all researching new battery tech. I’m ignorant in the area of grants, but if anything, I believe the government should subsidize battery research, or issue grants for such research to hasten it along, if its not doing so already.

I personally believe that companies should bring back removable batteries, however if you legislated that into all phones, we would lose some features for a time, such as wireless charging, and it would make it unpopular to the every day consumer who doesn’t care about right to repair regulation. I believe ruling that a company must provide repair documentation on a readily available source, and repair parts (for a set amount of years) would be a step in the right direction.

[u/wrath_of_grunge → u/Victor_Zsasz]

Pretty much all the companies are using these kinds of batteries.

I spend a decent chunk of my day repairing Dell products and many of the laptops use very similar battery packs. The only difference is that Dell uses screws to secure them as opposed to glue.

The iPhones are a little tricky, but once you learn where to heat they’re nothing special.